Where Could You Reclaim 6.5 Hours a Week?

Take the Time Poverty Index to Find Out

Are you and your team working harder than ever but struggling to find enough time for the work and relationships that matter most?

I’ve worked with executives and leadership teams across technology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, sales and other industries. Different businesses, different pressures, different priorities. Yet I keep seeing the same challenge: too much to do, too little time for work that moves the needle.

Take the TPI and learn where you’re losing time.

A sales leader wants more time with customers but spends hours in internal meetings and reporting. A technology executive needs to focus on innovation but spends much of the day firefighting. A pharmaceutical leader is trying to move new product development forward while navigating material shortages, competing priorities and constant interruptions.

These are capable, experienced people. Many are highly successful. But their overstuffed calendars tell a different story. There’s too little time, attention or energy left for their priorities.

That’s Time Poverty. And it’s costing organizations more than they realize.

What My Research Is Telling Me

My workplace research found that 94% of professionals don’t have enough time to focus on their highest priorities.

Now, early findings from my Time Poverty Index (TPI) are helping us understand where some of that time is going.

In the first 52 genuine responses to our question about low-value activities, participants reported spending an estimated average of approximately 6.5 hours per week on work they consider low value.*

The encouraging news is that this gives us an opportunity to examine how much of that time could be reclaimed.

Think about what that could mean.

More time developing customers, coaching employees, improving processes, thinking strategically or simply connecting with the people who matter.

Across an organization, even reclaiming a portion of that time could make a significant difference.

I’ve spent years helping leaders understand the habits, behaviors and ways of working that consume capacity. And one thing has become increasingly clear: organizations are very good at measuring performance, but far less effective at measuring what gets in the way of it.

We track revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Yet how often do we measure the time and attention consumed by unnecessary meetings, duplicated work, interruptions and constant firefighting?

Why I Created the TPI

I know what Time Poverty feels like personally. Earlier in my career, my relentless work habits took a serious toll on my health, relationships and performance. I was so focused on getting everything done that I rarely questioned what I was sacrificing along the way.

That experience started me asking better questions.

Years of working with individuals, teams and organizations helped me develop Performance by Design, my framework for identifying and removing the obstacles that prevent people from doing their best work and living full lives.

But I wanted a faster, more accessible way for people to recognize those obstacles in their own lives and workplaces. I also wanted a way to measure capacity: the time, attention and energy available for the work and relationships that matter most.

So I created the Time Poverty Index.

The TPI is a free, approximately three-minute assessment designed to identify the Busy Traps consuming your time, attention and energy.

It examines three areas:

• Focus & Execution: What’s preventing you from making progress on important priorities?
• Energy & Recovery: How much is your current pace costing you?
• Work Design: Where are inefficient processes and ways of working consuming valuable capacity?

The results provide a starting point for understanding where you’re experiencing capacity pressure and identifying practical opportunities to reclaim time through Performance by Design.

Take the free 3-minute TPI assessment and discover where your capacity is being stretched.

Who Should Take the Time Poverty Index?

I developed the TPI for professionals who want to understand where their capacity is going, and for leaders who want to help their teams perform better.

It’s particularly relevant for executives balancing operational demands with strategic priorities, sales leaders trying to create more customer-facing time, HR and organizational development leaders examining employee overload and a lost sense of purpose, and teams navigating growth, change or new technology.

I’ve seen how much can change when leaders begin questioning the work that fills their people’s days.

A meeting gets shortened. An unnecessary report disappears. Decision-making becomes easier. People have more time to serve customers, develop ideas and focus on the priorities that move the business forward.

They also have more room to breathe, reconnect with what matters and bring the energy needed to do their best work.

Those changes can make a measurable difference.

When early TPI participants report spending around 6.5 hours a week on low-value activities, imagine what reclaiming even part of that time could make possible.

That’s the conversation I want more leaders to have.

And the Time Poverty Index is where we can begin.

Take the free 3-minute Time Poverty Index assessment

*Research note: Based on genuine Time Poverty Index responses collected during early research. Participants selected ranges indicating how much time they spend on low-value activities each week. The approximate average of 6.4 hours was calculated using representative values for those ranges, including an assumed value for the open-ended highest category. This is a preliminary estimate of self-reported time spent on low-value activities, not a measure of time proven recoverable or actually reclaimed.